Common Ground
by limbo
Summary: A little piece that attempts to get inside that twisted little head of White's.


Title: Common Ground  
Author: limbo (in_limbo@despammed.com)  
Summary: A little piece that attempts to get inside that twisted little head of White's.  
Rating: G  
Spoilers: Season 2  
Disclaimer: Location - that gaping abyss that is Cancelled Television Shows. Ownership -   
presumably still Cameron and Eglee.  
Note: Contains the hint of a crazy little thought that entered my mind, about Max, White, and all that familial goodness.  
  
  
  
He was not a fan of beauty. Beauty was...deceptive-a layer of seduction hiding all sorts of ugly truths underneath. It made promises it couldn't keep, smiled sweetly to your face and stabbed you in the back when you turned away. Beauty had done nothing to earn his devotion.  
  
His mother had been beautiful, once upon a time when he had viewed beauty as a good thing-as a sign of goodness.  
  
His father had loved her very much. Too much, as it'd turned out. So much so that he'd betrayed everything he'd once stood for, everything that his people had worked so hard to build, to nurture, to attain.  
  
For beauty.  
  
His dark colouring, he'd inherited from her. Both he and his brother. Dark hair, dark eyes...it ran in the family. In all extensions of the family, it seemed.  
  
He cursed his father sometimes; cursed the fool for being so weak, so easily deceived. If it'd been merely an issue of love for his mother, he might have forgiven him-but he had taken the memory of her and blasphemed it with his experiments. Defiled it with his science and his creations.  
  
They'd never truly discussed Her, even in his father's few mentions during their brief, shared childhood. In quiet-soft tones, he'd spoken of the One-she who would save the world when the time came. He'd never taken it seriously, thinking it a fairytale meant to assuage his brother, who-even from the beginning, it was obvious-was too weak to survive the test. He'd never spoken of it with his father, but he saw it in Her eyes, in the familiar set to her mouth, the way she held herself when she walked...he saw it in bits and pieces, traces of the woman he'd once cherished in his heart, turned to for hugs and goodnight kisses and band-aids on scraped knees, and freshly baked cookies on Sunday afternoons.  
  
She'd made promises to him. Talked about how he'd always be safe and she'd always be there for them.  
  
Them.  
  
Again, a lie, because she'd thought they'd always be together. Always a family.  
  
In the end he realized she'd known so little of the truth; he'd seen that her promises were made in naiveté and innocent faith. Left in the dark until the end of her life, even by the man who'd worshiped her to the point of betrayal, and had taken his devotion to the extreme.  
  
He'd abandoned beauty when her promises proved themselves false. He'd abandoned faith and independence of thought and tolerance for his father and his strange, strange ideas-notions of equality and peace and co-existence. In turn, he'd embraced his heritage, his place at the top of the chain, his unquestionable state of superiority.  
  
When the time came for him to choose a wife, one who would provide him with a child through whom to propagate his superior genes, he'd turned down all those who possessed a hint of beauty. His elders-curious, concerned-had wondered at his dissatisfaction with the selection. Providing him choice after choice of suitable matches, each one to be turned away with scorn, without reason. Time made them question whether he would ever deem one worthy.  
  
But finally, he had found her.  
  
Plain, mediocre, and utterly unremarkable.  
  
Suitable.  
  
Pretty, only if one was feeling generous. But not beautiful. Not by any stretch of the imagination, beautiful.  
  
And the child she'd borne him was weak. He had still loved him...had almost understood what his father had gone through...had almost felt empathy.   
  
Almost.  
  
In the end he'd made the sacrifice that was expected of him.  
  
He'd told her he loved her too-though in the beginning their vows had meant nothing to him. Though he'd married her out of duty...out of a simple need to continue his lineage. He'd told her he had fallen in love with her.  
  
He'd lied.  
  
He'd never loved her, never could. But he was not so cruel that he couldn't offer her at least that little comfort before Death.  
  
Beauty was deception.  
  
Beauty was what his father had given the animals, to disguise from the world what they truly were-beasts, abominations, creatures to be exterminated.  
  
Beauty was what his father gave Her, their leader, their saviour, their so-called Chosen One.  
  
Beauty was everything he detested, everything he reviled, and sought to destroy.  
  
Family, he'd once called her, with a sneer and a look of contempt. She thought it was because they shared the same father, creator-but she had no idea.  
  
What they shared was a few strands of beauty.  
  
  
-end- 


End file.
